


The case of the cardboard box

by dogandmonkeyshow



Series: Watson's Woes JWP 2018 stories [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Awkward attempts at humour, Gen, Post-Episode: s02e01 A Scandal in Belgravia, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 13:37:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15171863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogandmonkeyshow/pseuds/dogandmonkeyshow
Summary: “It was a joke, Mycroft.”“Really.” Mycroft looked down at the box. “Aren’t jokes supposed to be funny?”





	The case of the cardboard box

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Watson's Woes JWP 2018 fic fest, prompt #4: Contradict Yourself. Contronymns are words that are their  
> own antonyms. Choose one from the list here and use both its meanings in your work. There's at least one of them in here (left).
> 
> This fic is a sequel to my 2016 JWP fic [A cat. Possibly.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7361812/chapters/16771018) and takes place one year later.

It took John almost a week of hunting in his lunch hours to find exactly what he was looking for, but in the end he recognised that the time invested was worth it.

He’d regretted not keeping the box Sherlock had used, but he was almost 100% sure that the one he found was the exact duplicate. And it would need to be; Sherlock would notice even a slight difference in colour or size, even though it has been a year.

Standing in the stationers where he’d found it, John decided to buy three, in case he wanted to do a test run or he accidentally ruined one of them. The army had taught him to always carry back-ups of essential supplies, and the extra expenditure was worth not having to make another trip to Bond Street.

The more difficult decision was: what to put in it. The temptation was strong to play the joke as Sherlock had, but John thought it wouldn’t be very effective. He needed something particular enough to make his point.

When he arrived home, he was glad to see that he was alone. So he began his research into how, exactly, he was going to construct his little turnabout, beginning with initial inquiries to an old Signal Corps buddy on how he might make it happen.

John had always known he was crap at secrets and lies, so he was surprised that over the next week Sherlock didn’t figure out that John was up to something. He wondered if Sherlock just didn’t care, or was so engrossed in Lestrade’s most recent serial kidnapping-and-murder case that he didn’t notice what was going on right under his nose.

A little on-line research, a couple of shopping trips to some of the more disreputable parts of London, five minutes with Sherlock’s purloined mobile, and one destroyed test box later, and John was ready to set up his little tableau. When the timing was right, he sat back to wait for his roommate to return from one of his solo jaunts.

When Sherlock walked through the door, he was obviously well into a rant and John wondered who Sherlock thought had been listening, seeing as he was alone. “—and the last time Mycroft bothered to tell me—” Sherlock stopped in the middle of the room, dead still, quivering like a hound that had just caught the scent of its prey. John didn’t look up from his book, but surreptitiously watched out of the corner of his eye as Sherlock carefully stalked the fireplace mantel and examined the small box John had placed next to the skull. He flicked his eyes back to his book as Sherlock turned.

“Is this your idea of a joke?”

“Huh?” John glanced up. “What?”

Sherlock gave him his patented “Stop pretending you’re clever, you’re really not” look and a twitchy head-tilt towards the mantel where Box No. 2, tied with blood-red ribbon, sat, the world’s most innocuous-looking prank.

“What?” John repeated, rising to the challenge with his best “No, sir, I have no idea who countermanded your order” expression.

Sherlock pulled himself up to his full height and sniffed, before flouncing off to his bedroom with a swirl of his coat.

John chuckled, not quite silently, as the bedroom door slammed.

The next morning, as usual, John was up and about before Sherlock. He noticed that the box was still where he’d placed it, and from what John could see, it hadn’t been touched. After listening for a few seconds for any sound coming out of the back bedroom, he moved the box to the kitchen table, carefully placing it between Sherlock’s microscope and the box of slides next to it. Then he left for work.

Unfortunately, unlike Sherlock, John didn’t have the ability to tap into Mycroft’s surveillance of the flat, so he had no idea if or how Sherlock might have taken the bait while John was at the clinic. When he returned to Baker Street that evening, the box was where John had left it and Sherlock was nowhere to be found. Mrs Hudson revealed that Sherlock had roared out the front door just before noon.

Alone at 221b again, John stared at the box and wondered if he should move it back to the lounge. Or should he go for the throat right away and place it in Sherlock’s bedroom? He decided to leave it where it was; he could use location as control data for evaluating Sherlock’s response.

The box remained where it was for the next two days. In John’s presence, Sherlock ignored it, ably working around it on the kitchen table, though to John’s eyes it seemed as though Sherlock was going out of his way to ensure he never so much as brushed a shirt cuff against it. It was as if he thought it was saturated with a poison deadly on contact. 

That night John moved the box to the desk, placing it in the exact centre (he even measured) of the closed lid of Sherlock’s laptop. The next morning John’s laptop had disappeared and when Sherlock was in the bath, John found his laptop under Sherlock’s bed. With a chuckle, he slid it into his bag and took it to the clinic with him.

John returned home that evening and saw that Sherlock was, again, gone. The box still sat in the middle of Sherlock’s laptop, like a tiny, well-accessorised guard dog. 

When Sherlock still hadn’t returned from his adventures by early the next afternoon, John began to worry a little. He knew Sherlock wasn’t working on Lestrade’s case, because Greg had called to complain to John that Sherlock was ignoring his calls. As dinner time approached, John wondered if he should phone Mycroft. 

An hour later the man himself arrived, with an even more annoyed than normal Sherlock in tow. From the mulish expression on Sherlock’s face and the grim lines bisecting Mycroft’s forehead, John calculated the brothers had been arguing for at least half an hour. 

“What’s a helicopter to you? Sometimes it seems like half the Royal Air Force is at your beck and call. I’ve come to think of it as your personal signature,” Sherlock sniped.

“My position affords me access to certain resources, _in the pursuit of business of national importance_.”

“Chasing down the girlfriends of the Queen’s errant grand-daughters—” 

“Sherlock—I’ve—nothing you say at this juncture is going to change my mind.”

“They why did you follow me home?”

Mycroft didn’t reply and as John watched with growing horror, he slowly but purposefully walked across the room towards the small cardboard box, waiting for Sherlock the past two days.

“Mycroft—” John warned.

“What is this?” he asked as he picked it up.

“What?” Sherlock replied from the kitchen.

“Nothing,” John added nonchalantly, though he could tell that Mycroft’s laser-beam eyes saw through it. “Don’t—”

Mycroft ignored him, and with one eye on the kitchen, untied the red satin bow and opened the box.

“Aaaaaahhhh,” crooned out and John thought perhaps he should have tested the volume before putting the little mechanism in the box. Mrs Hudson was probably in her kitchen going, “Oh, that rude noise of Sherlock’s again.” 

Mycroft looked as though someone had belched in the middle of the Throne Speech, then passed out in Prince Phillip’s lap. From Sherlock, all John heard was a crash of glassware in the kitchen.

Mycroft closed the box slowly, then opened it again. He continued to repeated close and open it, a mixture of consternation and fascination on his face. 

“And what, exactly, was that supposed to be?” Mycroft turned to John.

“And what, exactly, makes you think I had anything to do with it? It’s sitting on Sherlock’s laptop.”

“Because it was sitting on Sherlock’s laptop. That, and the—” He waggled the box in John's direction, clamping the lid shut with his thumb as another “Aaahh” began to escape.

“It was a joke, Mycroft.”

“Really.” Mycroft looked down at the box. “Aren’t jokes supposed to be funny?”

“Actually, the look on your face was pretty hilarious.”

“Physical comedy,” Mycroft replied, in tones that implied he’d been forced to say, “populist uprising” or “hired dinner jacket”.

“Serves you right for sticking your nose in other people’s business.”

“Ha!” Sherlock exclaimed from the kitchen.

Mycroft ignored John and headed in Sherlock’s direction, then gently placed the now-open box at his brother’s elbow. John couldn’t see his expression, but Sherlock’s face as he glanced up indicated it must have been quite something.

“What?” Sherlock demanded.

Mycroft ignored him now as he turned on a heel. Swinging his umbrella with his usual fake insouciance, Mycroft headed for the door. “Sherlock, John,” he said as he made his exit.

There was a crunch of broken glass and John saw Sherlock standing next to the kitchen sink, grinding a pile of glass on the floor.

“You alright?”

“Yes,” Sherlock replied in his “No, things really aren’t all right but I don’t want to explain, so don’t bother me” tone.

And because he _wasn’t_ as stupid as Sherlock regularly told him he was, John did exactly that. What he did do was go to the kitchen, pick up the little box, and throw it into the bin.


End file.
